The Rain and The Tree (A Prologue)
by Fujii29
Summary: This is the prologue of the AU story of Shingeki no Kyojin, where the TITAN here wasn't the rampaging big monsters eating up humans. Its a different kind of disaster eating up humans and creating misery in a different way. And in this hard environment and world, Erwin and Levi tries to find their ways together, carving their path to be better through the high and low. together..
1. the rain and the tree (a Prologue)

**The Rain and The Tree**

 **Foreword**

Hi there guys, how're you doin now? I hope y'all are OK and have some free time to enjoy reading. This fic is a little bit like a comeback for me, I was off for too long. But I wish I still can produce a decent one. *wink*

Ok, well, here's a little bit explanation before we enter to start to the first chapter, because it's an alter-world, mind you.

And I hope it can pique your interest and give me some input and critiques.

This is a story taken from Shingeki no Kyojin (Credit goes to the mangaka, not me).

And the characters inside will be (dum-du-du-dumm) Erwin – Levi.

I really really like that pair, more than Levi - Eren, sorry guys. And it's not going to be a romantic affair. At least in my mind right now, IDK if in the middle I think there will be some development.

A little warning: English wasn't my mother language; so, please pardon my weird word selections. I'm open to some repair and fixing the language if you don't mind helping me out.

Well, I hope you can enjoy this story (Prologue), and if its not too troublesome for you, plz leave some comments. Hahhaha…

 **Prologue**

The year 2042, it's approximately four years after the Government's secret bio-weapon in development 'TITAN' accidentally unleashed and destroying the world population by three quarter, all the destruction and poverty created by the disease makes people really suffers and broken. Physically and mentally.

The Government was trying out this new bio-weapon and secretly trying it out on some unsuspecting people inside their lab, and someone was just got too careless for their own good on their way transporting the safety bag to the other lab located outside town skirts. One of them accidentally fell down the car onto the bag, and the tubes inside was broken, the younger scientists got too panicked, somewhat forgetting some of the biggest safety protocols and just opened the bag to check the tubes.

And in doing so, the air-borne virus immediately starts to spread everywhere in a relatively short time. Air-borne viruses usually aren't that robust. Unlike the water-borne viruses, the air-borne viruses are easy to spread, but not that hard to eliminate. The only problem was that, well, they tend to spread too fast. Too fast.

'TITAN' is the name of the virus that makes only human body cells grow large and swell. It's intended to be a non-aggressive virus, and it will makes the human body grow in size and enlarging it by 3-4 times the normal human size, hence the name. It's actually still in Government's development project, in regards of the giant human soldier ideas; it will help on wars and industrial things. But halfway in the project, the virus reaction was far too horrific to think and to study more about. It's still too unstable and it was about to de-programmed or even destroyed if the de-programmed failed when the accident happened.

In a few weeks, there are reports in medical places, patients are being admitted with the report of body swelling and getting larger, but very weak. All the living cells are growing too fast. Far too uncontrollable. All the internal organs are also growing in size and weight inside the cage of ribs.

But somehow the bones are not affected. It remains the normal size. And because of that, the bones couldn't support the body weight and cannot contain the swelling of the internal organs anymore.

The organs got squeezed and pressed inside the ribcage, the heart cannot pump normally. The lungs cannot take too much air to breathe. One cannot even breathe properly to survive. Intestines got too pressed and squished to actually get food passed through. People who got infected almost cannot move anymore. Their own body becomes too heavy to haul.

They can't eat too much. They starved, and so they become weak. Almost no activity can be done. No work one can do to support themselves financially.

They cannot even sit to eat anymore…

Parents are worried about their children at home to work too far or too long, so they can't earn more money to treat their kids. Children went to their school in the morning without being able to erase the image of their suffering parents or siblings on their bed. They hardly can concentrate on the lessons anymore.

Husbands or wives go working after locking out their front door with tears in their eyes, remembering saying their goodbyes for the day. It might be the last time that they said that to their spouses.

The human infected will surely getting crushed to death by their own weight only after few months. But no cure has been found so far. Governments were still trying to make it stable before the accident, so the way to control it hasn't been developed too.

The only thing keeping the virus from totally annihilate the human race was the human's own body-immune. It means (as usual), some people are not infected at all, and some people just don't survive. Because no vaccine can ever found this far, so no one could find the prevention medicine.

Considering the dwindling and dropping numbers of human populations in the cities that were still surviving, it's not surprising that there's almost no one to take care of the cities. No one was there to control the gang criminals and illegal fake-medicine dealers at bay too.

The professional helps, workers, officers and officials are so limited. Medicines and healthcare are also a rarity.

Buildings were crumbling, schools were abandoned. Parks, malls, and attractions were closed. Transportation and distributions systems are crumbling. Government was in tatter.

No one was really available to take care of the public services anymore.

From now on, people must survive on their own power and way.

 **Afterword**

So there, the prologue was finished.

Was that interesting enough? Was it nice? I hope so… XD XD

And I hope it's not too weird. It's really fun to write this story. So many thing to discover, and I wish you'll be there with me. Please wait for the FIRST CHAPTER. *crossingfingers*

It won't be a long Fic. Might be just few chapters. But I hope it's good enough for y'all….

Well, see y'all again, maybe next week.

I got a big 3-days event to fold and fix on 3-4-5 July, 2015.

So, bubyeee guys

Hugs, Love, and cookies…

Fujii29


	2. Chapter 1

**The Rain and The Tree – Chapter 1**

 **Author's note:** hi folks… how are you? Hope you're OK.

It's me again, and this is The Chapter 1, and I hope the ' **Prologue** ' last time explain enough about the world we're about to enter. It's really not that complex, just not a nice & friendly world to live in, but as usual, we do love our own country despite whatever, right?

The POV would be from Erwin's side. I think it would be nice. Oh well, I confess, I like him very much actually… XD

And as usual, I would like to remind you that my mother language isn't English, so bear with me if I made some language and grammar mistakes…

I'm having this long long Eid Mubarak's holiday in my country, and I am going to utilize it as good as I can. Loads of sleep and hanging around this empty city since many people migrate to their home cities before next week's migration back to flood MY CITY again. Lol.

So I will cease all of working and maybe do this fic in my free-time between sleep and fooling this city around.

Lastly, I wish you could enjoy this story.

See ya for now….

 **The Rain and The Tree – Chapter 1**

It's raining again this afternoon. A real wet Wednesday. Not a bad hard and windy rain, but it makes him sigh anyways.

He heard the soft pitter-patters on the rooftops and the pavement, and there was some slight fog on the road. It's always raining within this few weeks. Well, it's the season.

Here, right now, on this street, Erwin Smith, one of the higher ranking Officer from National Defender just don't know if he should feel glad because the rain washed away all the grimes and dusts from this crumbling city and make it look cleaner for a few days, or if he should feel sad, because of the grayness, the emptiness feel, and the solitude.

All people tend to seek for shelters and prefer to abandon all their outdoor activities if it's not that important enough to avoid the rain. They cannot afford to be sick now, he knows. Being sick was really expensive now. And it's not that easy to find some drugs and medicines. Right now, the clinics inside this town were waiting for their monthly supply from the Central Government. And it's going to be next week before the Supply Train arrives, along with some orders, news and other important ingredients and food. Well, it's not like people were starving or cannot grow their own food here. It's just; sometimes the city's supply weren't enough. So right now, big cities like this city can hold off few month of deprivations, but not for too long.

And this rain makes the city look more desolate and bleak than ever.

The buildings were dark gray now, wet from the soft rain. The road was wet and slippery. And the small shrubberies bows a little because of the wetness. Even the windows were hastily closed to avoid the cooling wind blowing around.

A quick look around to ensure he's alone was a military habit he can't stop. And after seeing no one, he decided to gets on his walk faster to reach his apartment. He really needs his rest after a grueling 12 hours non-stop shift with his team last night to capture some illegal fake-medicines dealer, and he also cannot afford to get sick. Really, who wants to get sick anyway, with all the prices climbing sky-high? Even though the Government do pays for the Officials and Officers medical bills, they would really prefer just be top healthy and catch more criminals & illegal fake-medicine dealers.

It pays their bills, small bonuses, and keeps the roofs at night.

And it feels good to be able to save.

The soft rain starts to fall harder now. He realized that it will be no time for the rain to fall even harder along with the biting cold wind. He doesn't think that he will make it to his apartment and still be dry. There's another five more blocks to go, around 20 more minutes. Even though his light brown leather jacket could provide some dryness, his head and feet will still be very very wet and cold.

And his fast thinking got him the idea of finding some nice shelter before he really got drenched like a rat, here in this South Park that he usually bypass to and from apartment to office if he's too late. Very rarely late, at that.

This park got some very nice and huge trees. Also boasting the history, and the last fountain the city had, it's one of the places families and friends could go to enjoy some greenery scenes.

And it's also one the last of few parks that was safe from the area-demolitions when the government cannot handle the city's care and expenses anymore.

There it was, the biggest and tallest tree inside this park. And as Erwin suspect, it's still dry and relatively clean beneath the wide cover of its massive branches and dense leaves. It provides a nice shade for the sunny day, and a nice umbrella for the rain. It would be nice if he can just sit down here, resting for a while and waiting for this rain to stop.

He couldn't stop remembering his and his team's last night catch; and feel it's an OK night to pass. The man and his gang was a group they're after for a long time for illegally selling fake-medicines. Even though he was not sure their officers can make this man spill the beans about other gangs and their operation base, but they could guess it's a change in a better direction. It's good for boosting their and the citizen's morale. It's very disturbing and evil thing to do, to sell those medicines. People barely got enough money to buy food, and then BAM! Some family member got infected with the TITAN, and when the whole family grieves and try to pool some money to get the medicines designed to alleviate the pain, those gangs were out there boasting they got a very good medicines to help cure the sick family member.

The fake-medicines dealer, as cunning as snakes, always targeting unsuspecting families whose suffer from the TITAN. They were desperate enough to trust these dealers, even though Governments always explaining about the side-effects and the uselessness of the fake-medicines.

Their country's smartest scientists haven't even found the cure, so how come the dealers could come with the said cure that the scientists didn't even aware about the existing ingredients?

But the families didn't care about that. They're clinging to the hope that it might be true. And it creates another problem, drug intoxications.

Real mess.

Erwin doesn't really remember closing his eyes and dozing off, but now he was awoken by the sound of a commotion near his resting tree. He opens his eyes slowly and saw some guys ganging up on some other smaller guy, near the big shrubbery behind his tree. They were attacking the small guy viciously. That guy was trying to hold his own and give back some of the punches, but he's clearly outnumbered and overpowered.

Sighing, thinking about some delinquents and vandalism, he stands up and walks to stop the fight.

Why ever people still want to go out and fight in the middle of the rain, he really cannot comprehend. Maybe it's because the rain were covering the noisy sound they made, or maybe because there are hardly any people around to witness the fight. Or bullying, at that….

Or maybe both….

"Hey, stop it!" As he swiftly strode to separate the fight, he could see the delinquents' eyes bugging out as they recognize his brown leather jacket and seeing his weapon holders.

So fast they let the small guy's jacket off before they beat a hasty retreat.

"Shit, let's go! Hey, run! Run!"

"heck, Annoying man"

"Damn! Bad timing!" They let go of this guy, shouting some bad words to him that makes Erwin's hand itching to wash their mouth with some soap, and they starts to run away.

Erwin frowned. Well, they surely fast to run and scamper. He was wondering if they see him as an officer or just someone who disturb their fun-time. Well, now his first and utmost priority is to make sure this young guy is OK before he asks things about the juveniles.

"Hey, are you OK?" He can see this guy's sharp eyes were still fixated on their retreating back before he point his attention to Erwin.

"Mind your own business, old man". He said slowly with enough enunciation to draw blood.

Erwin raised his eyebrows in surprise.

This young guy, with a mop of wet dark hair, he's got some sharp and hard-assessing eyes, and cynical-annoyed air around him and now he was accusing Erwin of disturbing his day, as if it's daily occurrence. And he's just insulting Erwin for helping him.

The young guy starts to stand, and goodness, _He was short!_ Erwin belatedly realized it. Barely reaching his shoulder.

And such a skinny body. But lean. And really un-cared for.

Erwin was still in contemplation about what to do with this young man. Was he involved with some gang-related vengeance beating? Or he might just be in a wrong place and wrong time? Or was he mugged?

And on top of that, this young guy was looking at him in annoyance while he was trying to help.

Erwin notices some dark bruising around his cheek and long scratches on his arms and hands. His white dusty shirt was covered in some places with dark grayish or brownish shapes his sharp mind could easily guess that it's some kind of hard items used to hit him. And seeing his condition, he suspects it's quite hard for this young guy to get himself some medicines to take care his wound with.

"Look, I just want to make sure that you're OK. Are they're your friends?" Erwin raised his hand slowly, trying to be patient and placate him.

The young guy was silent for a few seconds; as if he'd make sure it's worth his time to answer Erwin. "As you can see, I am OK. And no, they're not. Not that it's your business anyway." He just stands and stares at Erwin with his cold eyes. Uncaring. He spits out before wiping his bleeding mouth.

"You're bleeding. And bruised too." Erwin pointed to his arm and temple.

"Yeah, yeah…. I get it, man". He walks by Erwin quite fast to the big tree, not really care that some of his wounds were seeping blood now. He flopped down, wiping some dripping blood from his temple and his back of palm. Cracking his neck left and right as if to alleviate the tension there.

He rolls up his sleeves, and start checking up some of his bruises on his arm.

"It will be bad tomorrow." Erwin heard himself said that line to the young man. He raised his gaze, and stares at Erwin for a few seconds before he return his attention to the bruises to his left lower arm again.

"Just shut up." He said, sounded mildly annoyed now, maybe his concentration was held by the wounds.

Erwin sighs again and slowly crouch down to the young man's level and un-consciously reaching out his hands to check at his bruises. The young man swiftly jerks his hand out of Erwin's reach. His eyes flashing dangerously.

"Stay away." He states firmly.

"Look, I just want to check your bruises, no harm will be done" Erwin said, raising both his palms outward to indicate no bad-intention.

"I can take care of myself" He spits out the word sharply.

"Yes, I know, of course a guy your age knows how to. But I got more experience than you, as you can see; my co-workers and I received some medical training to help each others in case of emergency. Let me just check you up and confirm you about you being all right. Kay?"

He eyed Erwin suspiciously and inside his heart, Erwin asks himself why he bothers at all. It's not like he appreciates some help and caring. His attitude was annoying, mildly put. But as he lower his bruised arms to his own lap and letting Erwin handled said arms, Erwin exhaled slowly.

It's really like handling a wild cat. All hissing and clawing.

The young man still eyeing him intently, Erwin decided the thinking can wait as he starts checking his bruises with professional eyes.

He prods here and there, press a little, and twist his arms and joints a few times. The young guy said and shows nothing on his face even though Erwin know it hurts.

"Well, no sprains. No fractured bones. Just rest it out and put cold water to compress the bruises. If you have some pain-reliever cream, it will be better sooner than later". Erwin gave his verdict, smiling soothingly and trying not to look high-and-mighty-knows-all.

The young guy just keeps his silence, drags his hands away, and continues his own checking and looking on his still bleeding right arm. He wipe the blood with his left hand.

"It will heal. I don't need anything else".

Erwin thinks inwardly that this young guy was used with fighting and beating, and also facing lots of bad situations around him. No-one could have that kind of cold uncaring eyes without having some kind of hardships in life. He got some scars too on his face and hands, not recent, but still, a little too many to count.

After a beat, from his left pocket pants Erwin fish out his band-aids he (and his co-workers) always brought, in case of emergency chase give them some small wounds and all…

He rips of the wrapping and shows the opened one to the man.

"I will just stick this to your left temple, kay?" Erwin ask while still putting some soothing smile on his face.

He moves slowly with the cool eyes still looking at him.

As he cleans out the small debris and wipe out the blood, then he sticks the band-aid to his temple, and he could notice some other old scars marring his temple. _No personal comment_ , he keeps reminding himself. No one likes to hear that from a complete stranger.

"There, all done." Erwin said and retreat a few steps behind. "And here's another for your cut on the back of your palm." He gave one to him, and watches silently as he applies the band-aid to his right hand.

Still, no thanks there. But Erwin wasn't surprised anymore.

"You want more?" Erwin asked, but as usual, only got glares.

"Do you know those guys?" Erwin tries to start a new conversation again while checking up on those delinquents in his memory. Who knows what kind of bad things they already started without notice. And if he can get some news or info about them, all the better for the law enforcements.

"Are they're your friends, and you have some argument with them?"

Not that he think that this one small guy was completely innocent too. But he tries to keep a clear mindset before he judge anything or anyone. Clear minds do help when it comes to make judgements.

"If they're some bad guys in the community, I want to catch them before they create more havoc." He explains as the young guy turned his head away.

"I cannot tell you anything at all about them". He only said that line after a few moment of silence.

"Can't or won't?" Erwin shot back calmly.

"Don't interfere on other people's business." The young man states softly but dangerously as he gaze back to Erwin's eyes. "And just leave us be".

Erwin takes some cleaning breath to his lungs before speaking softly and slowly, "Well, you see, my position and my job make it hard for me not to do that. And if they are a part of some gang, I must and I will do something to prevent other people get hurt too. Too many people and families were hurt because of gangs."

Erwin stops, looked at the sky like he's remembering something from times ago before continuing. "Either it's robbery, mugging people, or fake medicines dealers, or even as trivial as street vandalism, me and my team works our fingers to the bones to stop them." He states softly while stands up.

"We might not win every time. We've had our shares of looses. I've lost some of my precious team members too. We have our own weaknesses and liabilities. Sometimes we're just outnumbered. But we're trying our best and we will keep on trying. I will not giving up. No matter how hard my path will be".

Erwin continues calmly with a small smile on his face. "We will never know, I might catch them up tomorrow night. Or maybe they will elude me again. But anything is worth trying for. People were hurting everywhere. So many worries and anxieties in this world. People couldn't sleep because of thinking about their infected families. I don't think it's right to take advantage on such people, or make them suffer even more. We don't need that kind of worry anymore."

Erwin states softly. His eyes gazing somewhere far beyond this place. "it's not right. And it's painful too"

Erwin looked down so suddenly to look at the young man and contemplate a little. And then he realized that the rain was no more.

"Well, seems like the rain has stopped now. I must go back to my place to get my long-deserved rest. I hope you will consider about it, kay? If you think you can tell me something-anything at all about them, or any gangs that you've heard of, anything that you think might be helpful, you know where you can find me." He points to his brown leather jacket, and smiling, his eyes crinkling. "Me and my team will do all we can to catch them. It won't be easy. But we won't stop".

He smiles warmly to the young man who stares at him passively, and then said softly "Oh, where's my manner. My name is Erwin. Erwin Smith".

Erwin starts to walk away, waving back a little, leaving the man still sitting on the ground below the tree.

Walking slowly, enjoying the sun from behind the clouds, Erwin raise his head towards the afternoon sun and raised his hand to shade his eyes as he continues his trip home.

 **Author Note:**

Weelllll, there goes the **Chapter 1.** What do you think? Good, enough, bad?

I will be glad if I can get your responses, critics, suggestions and all. I will read it in joy and with happiness. Lol.

I hope it's not too long and bore you. I'm just trying to give you some insight around the city and the conditions.

And see you again on Chapter 2, in the next few week I gather, since I've got this long long holiday in front of me, and I must go where Internet doesn't reach : Pillow-land. Where everything was soooo smooth, sooo soft, and sooo cushy. And smells good too.

I missed my boyfriend, The Long Pillow.

He might hate me and be cold if I took too long to hug him.

So, Bye-bye for now.

Hugs, love, and cookies

Fujii29


End file.
